The latest on the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations: Minka Kelly's Weinstein story, a Twitter protest, and more
While Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct purportedly took place over decades, the repercussions are happening fast. As the disgraced mogul wined and dined the night before he was expected to enter rehab, women made new claims that they had narrowly avoided him, Oliver Stone withdrew his support, and people continued to make sure their voices were heard on social media.
An update:
Weinstein dines out before rehab
TMZ photographed the former movie mogul dining with four friends Thursday night at a restaurant in Scottsdale, Ariz., near the rehabilitation facility he was expected to enter on Friday. (Originally, Weinstein planned to go to rehab in Europe, then a different facility in Arizona, TMZ reported, but he ended up choosing to go somewhere near Scottsdale.)
A witness at the dinner reportedly said Weinstein was “acting normal, fine, like he didn’t have a care,” during the meal.
Weinstein’s contract reportedly allowed for sexual harassment
One reason for Weinstein’s mood during his final pre-rehab meal: The Weinstein Co. might have acted illegally when it told him to take a walk, again according to TMZ. The website is “privy to Weinstein’s 2015 employment contract, which says if he gets sued for sexual harassment or any other ‘misconduct’ that results in a settlement or judgment against TWC, all Weinstein has to do is pay what the company’s out, along with a fine, and he’s in the clear.”
Weinstein’s latest contract, signed in 2015, states that he can be fired for committing fraud against the company, the website adds, but the board knew he had settled lawsuits brought against him by women. Per that contract, Weinstein was reportedly entitled to mediation and arbitration before he was fired. Weinstein did not get either and was not given a specific reason for his termination.
Minka Kelly speaks out
The former Parenthood star described an encounter with Weinstein in an Instagram post Friday, in which she wrote: “I met Harvey at an industry party. The following day, my agent said he wanted to see me for a general meeting. The location was set for his hotel room. I wasn’t comfortable with going to his room & said so. The following day, we sat down with an assistant in the hotel restaurant. He bullshit me for 5 minutes re: movies he could put me in, then asked the assistant to excuse us. As she walked away, he said, “I know you were feeling what I was feeling when we met the other night” and then regaled me with offers of a lavish life filled with trips around the world on private planes etc. IF I would be his girlfriend.”
She also apologized for not speaking out earlier. “I’m sorry for obliging his orders to be complicit in protecting his behavior, which he obviously knew was wrong or he wouldn’t have asked me not to tell anyone in the first place. For making him feel ok about the gross things he was saying and that I felt my only route was to say I was flattered. For not insisting that my reps never allow anyone to take a meeting in a hotel room (with him or anyone else), because I honestly don’t know what might have happened if I’d just showed up as originally scheduled.”
Angie Everhart comes forward
On TMZ Live, Everhart told a story of being on a yacht with Weinstein once during the Cannes Film Festival. Having just arrived, she was jetlagged and sleeping in a bed when Weinstein, whom she only knew of through friends, entered the room with another woman. The woman soon left, and Everhart felt trapped, as she was only wearing a T-shirt. She said Weinstein then blocked the door and masturbated in front of her until he ejaculated, then said, “You’re a really nice girl. Don’t tell anybody about this.” However, Everhart said she told “everyone,” but no one believed her.
Rose McGowan goes silent — in protest
Weinstein accuser McGowan, one of the women named by the New York Times last week as having reached a settlement with the mogul over “an episode in a hotel room,” declared on Twitter that he had raped her. (This was only hours after her account had been restored following a suspension Thursday, because she violated the company’s terms of service by posting a private phone number.) The Scream actress also said that she had disclosed her story to higher-ups and had been ignored. Separately, she said she had pleaded with Jeff Bezos, whose company often partners with the Weinstein Co., not to fund “rapists, alleged pedos and sexual harassers.”
1) @jeffbezos I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof.
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
4) @jeffbezos I am calling on you to stop funding rapists, alleged pedos and sexual harassers. I love @amazon but there is rot in Hollywood
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
Then, she used her platform and the hashtag #ROSEARMY to encourage women to boycott Twitter on Friday, because of its uneven rule against what it will and won’t tolerate. McGowan also called upon men, including Ryan Gosling, to take action, too.
you could at least do us the courtesy of saying our names https://t.co/IJEBkdopHV
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
MEN: if you are on here tomorrow, I urge you to AMPLIFY our voices. Call on your brothers to be better, go after ones who won’t. #ROSEARMY
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 13, 2017
In response, Chrissy Teigen, Mark Ruffalo, Alyssa Milano, and other heavy Twitter users vowed to stay off the platform for 24 hours.
Tomorrow. No secret timeline checking, no tweets, no clicking the bluebird square. They need to see we matter.
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) October 13, 2017
Tomorrow I follow the Women. #WomenBoycottTwitter
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) October 13, 2017
Actress claims colleagues physically shielded her from Weinstein
Anna Wilding was in an elevator with Weinstein headed to a meeting with him during the Miramax party at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival when, she says, two men she worked with stepped in to shield her. They “came up to me and literally stood between me and Harvey, they literally lodged their way between me and Harvey, and said, ‘No Harvey, not Anna’, or ‘No Harvey, not this one. It was quite extraordinary,” she told WABC. “They spoke to me afterwards directly and they said, ‘Anna, you are not safe to be alone with Harvey,’ and they were very clear with me not to ever be alone with Harvey.”
Oliver Stone backtracks on Weinstein comments — and is also accused of harassment
When the director was first asked about the Weinstein saga, he was cautious and even sympathetic to Weinstein. “I’m a believer that you wait until this thing gets to trial,” said Stone, whose series Guantanomo, was acquired by Weinstein. “I believe a man shouldn’t be condemned by a vigilante system. It’s not easy what he’s going through either. During that period he was a rival. I never did business with him and didn’t really know him. I’ve heard horror stories on everyone in the business, so I’m not going to comment on gossip. I’ll wait and see, which is the right thing to do.”
But by Friday, he had a new take on the situation. “I’ve been travelling for the last couple of days and wasn’t aware of all the women who came out to support the original story in the New York Times,” he shared on Facebook. “After looking at what has been reported in many publications over the last couple of days, I’m appalled and commend the courage of the women who’ve stepped forward to report sexual abuse or rape. I’ll therefore recuse myself from the Guantanamo series as long as the Weinstein Company is involved.”
At the same time, actress and former Playboy model Carrie Stevens alleged on Twitter and in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that Stone had once groped her.
When I heard about Harvey, I recalled Oliver walking past me & grabbing my boob as he walked out the front door of a party. Two of a kind!
— Carrie Stevens (@CarrieStevensXO) October 13, 2017
“It was at Ted Field’s home years ago, around the time Oliver did JFK. The party was in his honor. Oliver was on his way out; Ted was seeing him to the door. Oliver spied me standing nearby and just reached out and instead of doing what a normal person does and shaking my hand, he just groped my boob and honked it like a horn and grinned and kept walking.”
Oscar winner Patricia Arquette also referred to a time that Stone seemed interested in her for a role. He invited her to a screening, she said, but she brought a date along because the invitation had felt weird. She said she never heard anymore about the role.
What I am demonstrating is the craggy and uncertain terrain women negotiate in Entertainment and all businesses.
— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) October 13, 2017
Stone did not immediately respond to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.
Jason Momoa apologizes for rape joke
About that joke Momoa made about rape during a 2011 Comic-Con panel, video of which resurfaced in the wake of the Weinstein news… Momoa apologized in a statement shared on Instagram. “I made a truly tasteless comment,” his statement read in part. “It is unacceptable and I sincerely apologize with a heavy heart for the words I said.”
A post shared by Jason Momoa (@prideofgypsies) on Oct 12, 2017 at 4:32pm PDT
Hollywood continues to react
People have continued to share their stories about Weinstein and other powerful (and not-so-powerful) men in Hollywood, but they’ve also voiced their support of the women who have done so in the past week.
Blake Lively revealed in a Thursday interview with the Los Angeles Times that she had once been harassed by a makeup artist. She had earlier denied ever having experience inappropriate behavior from Weinstein. However, she said her experience with the makeup artist was “terrifying.” “He was saying things inappropriately, insisting on putting my lipstick on with his finger,” she told the paper. “I was sleeping one night on location and I woke up and he was filming me. I was clothed, but it was a very voyeuristic, terrifying thing to do.” She told producers, but nothing happened, so she went to a lawyer. He was subsequently removed from the project, but not without a letter of recommendation. Both women and men are sharing harassment stories in the wake of Weinstein’s fall.
Frequent Weinstein collaborator Quentin Tarantino, Oprah Winfrey, Julia Roberts, Emma Thompson, Heidi Klum, and others weighed in on the controversy as well.
Oprah posted her thoughts on Facebook:
“I’ve been processing the accounts of Harvey Weinstein’s hideous behavior and haven’t been able to find the words to articulate the magnitude of the situation. Filmmaker James Schamus captured so much of what I’ve been feeling when he said: ‘This is the story of one predator and his many victims; but it is also a story about an overwhelming systemic enabling, and until that story is fully told we will fall far short of stopping future depredations on a similar scale.’ Thanks to the brave voices we’ve heard this week, many more will now be emboldened to come forward EVERY time this happens. I believe a shift is coming.”
Roberts released this statement:
“A corrupt, powerful man wields his influence to abuse and manipulate women. We’ve heard this infuriating, heartbreaking story countless times before. And now here we go again. I stand firm in the hope that we will finally come together as a society to stand up against this kind of predatory behavior, to help victims find their voices and their healing, and to stop it once and for all,” she said. “If you’ve been subjected to any kind of abuse or harassment, there are places to go for help, including the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN.org),” her statement adds. “Or call the National Sexual Assault Hotline 800-656-HOPE (4673).”
Klum’s long-running show, Project Runway, is produced by the Weinstein Co. Here’s what she said, in a statement given to People:
“I wish I could say that the horrible stories I read about Harvey Weinstein are a rare occurrence in our society, but that is simply not the case. We would be na?ve to think that this behavior only happens in Hollywood. This is one example of the more pervasive problem of the mistreatment of women around the world. I think it would be hard to find a woman — myself included — who (has) not had an experience where they have felt intimidated or threatened by a man using his power, position or his physical stature. I truly admire these brave women who are coming forward to share their stories because change cannot come unless there is a dialogue and people are held accountable.”
During an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight, Thompson spoke of Weinstein. “I don’t think you can describe him as a sex addict; he’s a predator,” she said. “He’s at the top of the ladder of a system of harassment and belittlement and bullying and interference. This has been part of our world, women’s world, since time immemorial. So what we need to start talking about is the crisis in masculinity, the crisis of extreme masculinity which is this sort of behavior.”
Tarantino asked his actress friend Amber Tamblyn to share his response.
From Quentin Tarantino: pic.twitter.com/jv0VQNrI91
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) October 13, 2017
Surely, the conversation will still be going on then.
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